The following is a list of phrases that we will be using in class. You may want to use them at home as well. That way your child will be used to hearing them, and he or she will learn how to follow our "Nursery School Rules!"

Keep your hands to yourself. Do not touch other children.

Turn your listening ears on, and your voice off.

Use inside voices.

Use walking feet.

Sit with pretzel legs. (straight or twisted)

The following explains how we teach the children to make good choices, something that is not only important in school, but in everyday life as well.

In Nursery School we are learning how to follow classroom rules and make good choices. We review the rules on a daily basis.

If someone is not following the rules, we start a discussion:

“Are you doing the right thing?”

“Is that a good choice?”

“What do you thing would be a better choice?”

By doing this, children are learning, on a daily basis, how to be responsible for their actions and how to make good choices.

They are learning, through discussion and examples, to identify what a good choice is and what the wrong choice is.

They are learning how to change their actions if they are not making good choices.

They are learning how important it is to make good choices every day, both at school and at home.
Once the children learn the importance of making good choices at school and at home, we begin encouraging children to do the right thing without being asked.

If a child is spotted not making a good choice, the discussion now switches from good choice vs. wrong choice to thinking before making a choice.

Children in Nursery School are learning that we should do things that make God happy, make parents happy, and make teachers happy. When a child makes a wrong choice, children are now encouraged to stop and think before they do something. The discussion now becomes:

“Do you think you made God/parents/teachers happy when you chose to do that?”

“What should you have done instead that would have made God/parents/teachers happy?”

This way, the children in Nursery are learning how to stop and think before doing something to ensure that their choices are ones that would make God, their parents and their teachers happy.
Further building upon this, the children in Nursery are taught to take responsibility for their actions and reactions. Many young children react to things they don’t like by yelling, crying, hitting…sometimes even biting. The reason for this is that young children don’t have the words to resolve issues.

One of the things we learn in Nursery School is to “use our words” and to “keep our hands to ourselves.” Children in Nursery are taught to say “Please don’t do that” when someone does something they don’t like instead of yelling or crying. They are taught to say “Can I have a turn with that toy when you are finished with it?” instead of grabbing toys out of someone’s hands.

By teaching children key phrases like these, children become empowered to solve issues on their own without relying on adults to intervene. They are becoming proactive, and taking responsibility for their actions.

Children in St. Joseph Nursery School program not only learn how to follow rules, they learn how to make good choices, how to solve problems, and how to take responsibility for their actions!